Wiremu Maihi Te Rangikāheke, c. 1815–1896

Abstract

Wiremu Maihi Te Rangikāheke was the author of more than eight hundred pages of manuscript in Māori, which encompass features of Māori language, genealogies, legends, traditions, contemporary history, political commentary, customs, proverbs, songs, literary commentary, and autobiographical material. The manuscripts were the source of most of the prose material in the appendices to Sir George Grey’s Ko Nga Moteatea me Nga Hakirara Maori [Poems, Traditions and Chaunts of the Maoris] (1853), and much of the material for his Ko Nga Mahinga a Nga Tupuna Maori [The Deeds of the Maori Ancestors] (1854), and hence of its translation, Polynesian Mythology (1855). Thus Te Rangikāheke’s writings became the major part of the earliest accounts of Māori history and culture. Grey did not acknowledge his informant and introduced alterations, combinations, and omissions in Ko Nga Mahinga a Nga Tupuna Maori. In 1854 he presented his library to the Cape Town Public Library where it was catalogued, titles in English being given to Te Rangikāheke’s manuscripts where necessary. Little was known of Te Rangikāheke until 1906 when W. H. Williams visited the Cape Town Public Library and made known the full extent of Te Rangikāheke’s contribution. After 1922 Grey’s library was returned to the Auckland Public Library where it became accessible to scholars. A few letters are held elsewhere, including one address and one letter in the John White Papers held in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington. In later life Te Rangikāheke was a government official and leader in his tribal area. He was a renowned orator.